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What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

reuters.com

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Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#761

Post by x86_64Ubuntu »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #758
platinumrad wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without minimizing the awfulness of this invasion and the fact that it must be condemned, it is not nearly as brutal as Russian operations in Chechnya and Syria or the US-led coalition invasion of Iraq, likely because Ukranians are not nearly as much of a racial or cultural other to Russians as Chechens or Syrians. The greater ability of Ukrainians to gain coverage in both traditional and social media may also be a f…

Yes. What the USA does to other countries is atrocious. It's likely the reason the USAs damage is worst is that we have far superior equipment to do damage. It's horrible and disgusting. But what does it have to do with what is happening in the Ukraine right now?

Because when the West is doing it, no one batts an eye and then devolves into a diatribe about "Freedom" and "Democracy". There are no sanctions, there is very little overt assistance given to our enemies. But when Russia does it we start toying with the idea of nuclear war and allowing groups to go over as foreign fighters.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#762

Post by selimthegrim »

dontthrowawaytr wrote: post #732
selimthegrim wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a hue and cry about Ukrainians dipping bullets into salo but seeing as the Chechens got droned by Bayraktars it seems like the Turks don't mind whatever treatment the drones are getting.

Using throwaway... Chechens themselves had the same tragedy in Grozny. I don't believe these puppet soldiers have the sympathy of the vast majority of muslim people. While there are many problems like treatment of african students, comments on TV channels mentioning "civilized" part of the world, and not having the public outcry for middle-eastern people(or welcoming arms for refugees), and the topic you mentioned. A…

I would think Crimean Tatars on Ukrainian side (and Lipka Tatars if any show up from Poland) aren't too bothered about Chechen feelings.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#763

Post by denton-scratch »

trashtester wrote: post #734
denton-scratch wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's hard to fathom any rational justification for this. It can only be because they think that it's essential to strike now; they think that if they leave it, terminal decline is inevitable. This is a military operation that's been planned for years; by 'now', I mean 'this decade'. I imagine they saw the European gas crisis as an opportunity, and one that would slip away quickly if they didn't seize it. That's why…

Hmm, I think another reason for this to happen now, is that the border between Belorussia and the Ukraine is covered by the Pripet Marches, that are neary impassible by heavy equipment when not frozen. Without access that way, Russia would have to fight their way from the east, and forced to cross the Dneipr river, which forms a very significant obstacle. This could delay an invasion by a month or more.

Yes; there seems to be a Russian column abandoned near the Belarus border, due to getting bogged down in mud, i.e. it's not actually frozen (a couple of days ago it was reported that Kiev was warmer than Manchester, England).

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#764

Post by sAbakumoff »

xtian wrote: post #748
sAbakumoff wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

The difference is people like you aren't willing to put any skin in the game when you make these sorts of extraordinary claims.

No post body was provided.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#765

Post by lakis »

UltraViolence wrote: post #723
sofixa wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why it was funny that Turkey was ostracized for buying Russian/Chinese SAMs ( was it S-400 last or a Chinese version). What else could they possibly buy? The Patriot system isn't even close, and doesn't seem to be working too well for the UAE ( but then again we don't know how S-300/400/500 would deal against drones and light missiles)

Turkey bought S-300 systems and were pummeled for it. I find this puzzling since Greece, also a NATO member, also purchased Russian S-300 systems but weren't penalized for it.

  Turkey bought S-400. Greece got S-300. Different systems.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#766

Post by nomel »

ricktdotorg wrote: post #710
nomel wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the enemy could analyse your strategy and tactics and predict your approach; and worse Encryption won't encrypt the shell going through the wall, which could just as easily be analyzed with the constellation of spy satellites focused on the region. > the enemy can impersonate command, say "approach through there" and have the tank go through an anti-tank ditch This would be uncoded communications that would put the…

i don't believe GP was specifically impugning the intelligence of the average Russian soldier/commander, more commenting on the apparently high displayed level of incompetence shown in the field so far (of which the use of wide-open unencrypted HF radio comms with basic tone squelch/CTCSS at the company battalion brigade level is just one example). it was not a critique of intelligence, if anything it was a critique…

> what kind of competent general staff lets [at least some] of their battalion-and-below radio comms go out into open frequencies that are easily listened to

One that is part of a military that has old radio equipment (maybe from competently allocating funding to something more important), so they have no other choice. I'm sorry, but that doesn't require incompetence. Incompetence would be if they let it unexpectedly impact their invasion. Competence for an invasion doesn't require encryption (see Crimea). An encrypted radio channel makes things easier, but it may not be required for the invasion of Ukraine, which is the context here.

The definition of competence: the ability to do something successfully or efficiently.

The purpose of this war isn't to unlock all achievements with a high score, it's to take Ukraine. They're still progressively taking Ukraine, and they've only sent in 1/3 of the forces from the border (last numbers I saw).

Yes it's madness.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#767

Post by Cd00d »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #755
suddenexample wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the funniest comment I've ever seen on HN, I snorted

I debated deleting it as it's more of a reddit sort of comment, but I like adding a bit of lightness to HN here and there.

I appreciated the check on the unnecessary condescension

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#768

Post by StillBored »

selimthegrim wrote: post #631
InitialLastName wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that the current program lets them avoid learning those things, or that they should be allowed to avoid learning them? I'm not sure I've seen a calculus course that skipped those (granted, it's been more than a decade since I looked at calculus courses). They certainly seem to still be within the remit of the FE - ECE exam.

It's more an issue of what the students are retaining from calculus.

I don't think this is a new problem. Its largely a problem of the way its taught, particularly at the high-school level where professional teachers and politicians choose what is important in the curriculum (and yes, I know a lot of engineering programs require an "engineering calculus" taught at the college). Nothing has changed since Feynman's little rant, if anything looking at my kids schooling its worse than ~30 years ago when I was in HS. Although, i'm told I can't compare my HS education because I went to one of the best HS's for math/science in the country (one of first of what are now called "STEM magnets" long before that term was even coined) at the time.

But even so, my calc for engineering classes suffered from basically the same problems of focus. It was frequently hard to tell what was really important vs what was an interesting sidetrack I would never use again. Which is why I distinctly remember a number of my engineering classes having week long math refreshers as the first week of class for things like Laplace transforms/etc or a math refresher TA lead study groups the prof would strongly suggest people attend at the beginning if they couldn't solve some basic math problems written on the board the first day of class. Where I went, the first week or so was add/drop and many of the professors would toss in a "prereq" quiz to scare people into dropping who weren't strong enough in the prereqs as another method. And being an engineering class grades weren't "given". For some classes it was well known that there were going to be a lot of C's and D's because the prof wasn't going to dumb down his material if you couldn't keep up because they were believers in normal distributions (and I remember a physics professor who would show the distribution for tests/etc) and that A's really meant you were excelling.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#769

Post by raducu »

ashwagary wrote: post #751
cguess wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

82% of all staged forces as of this morning according the US DOD.

Unfortunately, the massive propaganda campaign may extend into the DOD's public narrative. It did with the Iraq and Syrian wars.

Yeah, the DOD lies, like they lied about Russia invading Ukraine. How could glorious Russia commit more than 0.5% of their forces if they haven't won yet?

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#770

Post by raducu »

monocasa wrote: post #647
cagey wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having (from a US civilian POV) sought to comprehend Soviet (and now Russian) military capability from afar since the early 1980's, it has long been my perception that (due to the political system in place there and the resultant poor economy) only 5-10% of Russian/Soviet military units nominally in existence have sufficient morale, training, and full provisioning with modern equipment to engage in successful offensi…

But their doctrine isn't to start with the with the well trained and equipped 5-10%, but instead a bunch of conscripts that that soak up some material, and then send in the competent soldiers.

Surely they started with the fake special forces then, just as a prank for Ukraine? Surely the ukrainians just killed the general of those decoy/fake spetsnaz?

Surely they asked for cechen, mercenary, bielorusian and even Kazhatanian troops just to join the 85% of non commited troops, because it makes perfect sense to bring troops from thousands and thousands of km instead of using your non-commited troops that you have already staged.

They did not commit all, and russia doctrine is recon by fire and they don't give a fuck about their conscripts lives, but what you see is what Russia got.

They didn't switch to demolish cities because they are evil.

They ran out of precision munitions and the ukrainian had their asses handed to them so they switched to siege warfare.

You are seeing the true face of the russian army, subpar by all standards, but enough for the butcher in Kremlin.

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